By Hans Ebert
The comings and goings and ins and outs of the Wanchai night scene has always been, well, colourful, but, these days, there’s a touch of Pulp Fiction with cheeseburgers to it all.
Of course, the LOUDEST whisper is that three of the most well-known girlie bars down Jaffe Road are fronts for money launderers from Mainland China. The recent purchase of one of these dumps for an astounding HK$30m kinda said it all.
Add to these shenanigans, the resident band of one of the area’s more “Banana Republic” bars being fired after accused of rape by a Colombian working girl, and the reasons behind the abrupt sale of Spicy Fingers to rival Dust Till Dawn and the long overdue non-payment to its resident musicians.
From the outside looking in, what you have is a combination of a turf war, dwindling businesses and nothing being quite what it appears. It’s one big Wanchai WTF Moment.
Speaking of which, one hears that the new Chinese owner of the Spanish tapas bar and restaurant that is WTF in Lower Elgin Street, might have bitten off more than she could chew.
Everyone thinks they can do better than the previous management and owners who wisely said WTF and sold it. Instead of continuing with a Business As Usual strategy, new changes have come into play by someone completely new to the restaurant business. One major change has been bringing in her boyfriend- from the UK and where he worked for a Chinese restaurant. With longtime staff leaving, the Alley Cat is tipping that WTF will soon collapse into Fawlty Towers run by Hong Kong’s answer to Basil and Manuel.
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